WasatchMan

Just another chance for the anti-humans of the world to scream at humanity. Naughty, naughty humans.

"It is a sign of a physiological weakness, of someone who isn't willing to stand on their own mind and his own responsibility." "You say you need someone to explain the order, but then what will you use to explain god? You have to take what exists as a fact, and you start with what exists, and you see how much you can learn about it."

Saw this video posted on YouTube, and thought it worth sharing here. "I don't believe lack of knowledge is a license to start inventing fantasies." Sadly, it would seem like we are still having to debate these simple truths today.

Maybe one way to think about how much free will we have is to analogize it to a sport like basketball. When you first start you, can barely dribble, can't shoot 3's, can't do lay-ups - you have almost no freedom to do what you want on a basketball court. As you practice, you start gaining skills that allow you to do more and more what you want to do - your freedom to choose has expanded. With free will, the more self knowledge you have and the ability to introspect and challenge your brains immediate choices, the more free will you have.

You could consider this a "sunk cost fallacy". You don't have to do anything - what you shouldn't do is nag yourself about this type of stuff because that just pulls at your self esteem. Figure out why you wanted to do these things - and why you now don't want to, and if you are fine with not doing them, don't. One thing successful investors tell themselves when they make a bad investment is that "its all new money now". Meaning that the money is already gone, so there is nothing you can do about that, all you can do is make the most out of what you do now have.

I think endorsing is a strong stance. It is a pretty big stretch to say that an anarchist who is against voting and politics as such is endorsing a candidate for political office. All I saw him doing was trying to provide some level arguments for someone who (whether or not for political attention/gains) is speaking some truth to power, and is getting the media propaganda end of the stick. I think you are taking things out of perspective.

I think FTL has actually now been shown to be theoretically possible. Right now it is not practically possible because you need more mass and/or negative mass then could ever be gathered, however, you know humans - we'll find a way

I agree with this. If you are going to discuss these issue, talk about principles. Debating the pragmatic details around what stat people can pull up to justify something is irrelevant. Do you think people would accept for slavery if you could show people were 200% better under that system? Well don't let them argue for theft because they can pull out a stat showing single payer works better than freedom. It doesn't, but even if it did, I would argue for freedom.

I also thought it was a good movie. I find AI really interesting to ponder. The idea really drives all the way down to the core of what makes us human, what is life, what is consciousness, what does it take for something to have morality apply to them.

You are right, I was going from memory, my mistake. It was Omega who started this stupid shaming tactic. You have accused me of things that you were wrong without apologizing so I don't feel the need to apologize to you (like when you accused me of being emotionally empty because I was saying that the downvoting thread was satire, only to come to find out it was). You know, treat people how they treat you and all. Also, I didn't even claim it was you.... so yeah... Also since you were taking Omegas lead with this intimidation tactic, I don't see why you think you deserve an apology. Here is what you said: I didn't think you were talking about me. All I really meant was that I do obviously relate. I agree that this is a important dialogue to have and applaud you for kicking it off. I have actually already been giving it some thought about good reasons to engage with bullies. Once I can formulate some good arguments about it I will definitely post it here.

Definitely book. The main ideas of Atlas Shrugged are only hinted at in the movies.

I think this is a great analysis Kevin, and I am pretty sure the first two reasons to engage I have messaged with you about directly. I agree with a lot here, about their rationalizing ad-infinitum, their baiting with truth, etc., and am obviously one of the guilty parties when it comes to "feeding trolls" here. However, I think there is something to consider about the dichotomy the phrase "feeding trolls" sets up, and that is one that if you don't feed them they go away. While this might be the case with some, it is obviously not the case with all. This is because the word "troll" is an evasion of what we really should be talking about, and that is bullies. We have a bully problem - and it seems to be growing. I don't know if ignoring them or using the rating system is going to make them go away or stop. Look at Omegahero09's response to this post. It wasn't to troll, it was to intimidate. To try to make you feel less about yourself or humiliate you in some way. What did he use to do this? Something his bully friend started to try to use against you in another post by trying to shame your masculinity by insinuating that you had "beta tendencies". [Edit] Omega actually did start the "beta tendencies" line, not anyone else. Others just followed suit. [/Edit] I don't think it is a shock to anyone that this sort of behavior is coming out of people who practice PUA. Am I saying that the only way to stop these bullies is to engage them? I am most certainly not. I don't know answer. My automatic response is to want to stand up to bullies - to throw their shit right back in their face, but I am certainly open to this being counterproductive.

Maybe instead of adding logical fallacies to the guidelines, we add removing PUA manipulation strategies being used on a philosophy forum?

Through a moral revolution where people understand that the initiation of force is immoral. Moral revolutions are extremely practical, people used to own people for thousands of years, however through a moral revolution in understanding that is immoral, it changed rather quickly in society as a whole. (to paraphrase Mr. Molyneux) Do you think it mattered how the cotton would get picked to people who understood it was immoral to own another person?

Could all people extract taxes from all people for use of land? Would it be theft for some to tax and not for others? What grants the tax collectors the special privilege to collect taxes from land owners that would make it theft for others to do that?

I think what Patrick is trying to say is that subjective is a subset to objective... Just kidding.. couldn't resist myself (inside joke) I believe he is making the argument that symbols are just containers for meaning and only hold that meaning as far as people understand and accept that meaning. There is nothing intrinsic in the symbol "$" that would make someone with no prior knowledge know that that meant a medium that stores value. I think an example would be to take gold. As has been argued a lot, gold has no intrinsic value, it only holds value in that it is a rare earth metal that is rather unique in its properties which make it a good store of value. If all of a sudden an asteroid got captured in the earth's orbit that was a quarter the size of the moon and was solid gold, gold we cease to be valuable (assuming we had something better than NASA to get us up into space ) The follow-up question would be, is all language then subjective as such? I think you could say that language is objective in the sense that a dictionary defines its meaning, but then how objective are dictionaries? They obviously change with time and evolve, so there is some subjectivity to it, but if we were to say all language is subjective, then we couldn't have conversations on this forum. A good way to think about may be that symbols are less precise than language, and are therefore more subjective than language.

ummm.. I am not saying that at all. Good strawman fallacy though

Wouldn't that guideline itself be committing the "fallacy fallacy"? Some logical fallacies aren't even bad because everything isn't in the context of a purely logical argument. Also, a lot of things you can only argue from the position of a logical fallacy, because you have the humility to know that you aren't an expert in everything. I will make arguments about scientific realms that I am not an expert in and will rely on what is put forward by experts as a good way to try to determine the truth. Is a perfect ironclad argument? Likely not. However, it is sometimes the best we can do with limited information. If someone said I could not do this claiming I am making the "appeal to authority fallacy" and am therefore wrong and out of community guidelines, they would be committing the "fallacy fallacy". I also think this would just result in a lot of bickering and accusations on whether someone did or did not create a logical fallacy, since there are huge grey areas in some of the logical fallacies. However, I do agree there are some logical fallacies that should not be tolerated (like strawmanning).

My thoughts exactly...

ummm... what scientific dogma are you talking about? It was only because of the discipline known as science that we know that dinosaurs are not lizards.... I think you have confused lizards for all reptiles... Dinosaurs were (are) reptiles (birds are reptiles under the phylogenetics classifications system). From the Smithsonian website (can't get much more "big science" than this): Where did you get this idea that science claims that dinosaurs are lizards? How can you claim that scientific institutions "refuses to adapt and change cultural perception"? Did you even read the stuff you quoted?? The first quote you provide lays out the scientific progression of the discovery of dinosaurs not being lizards...

I think you are getting wrapped around language games and missing the point. "Random mutation" is just a way to communicate a process that is extremely complicated, and almost impossible to predict. Sure, there are causal relationships deep down in the cell division process that result in millions of different ways a cell can mutate, and is ultimately not "random", just millions of possibilities that results in what is identical to random in effect. This is not not even an important point about the theory of evolution and the process of natural selection. The important part is that cells do mutate in millions of ways, these mutations end up being advantageous or disadvantageous to the survival of a organism in a changing environment, and the advantageous cell mutations thrive and the disadvantageous ones do not, leading to a process of an organism becoming more and more adapted to its environment through time. Whether or not mutation is truly "random" does not take away from how this process fundamentally works.

Sorry if I put my confidence in scientist who have made professional careers studying things. I have no reason to doubt them outright. Do they get things wrong? Sure they do they are human, but I don't believe they are inherent lairs. This is why I don't see a need to carry on this dialogue. Our premises are not the same. I don't see how I can have a scientific discussion with someone who accuses (not a big dramatic word, btw) me of being dogmatic for using the discoveries and interpretations of scientists as a basis for knowledge. For complex ideas I can only provide you the arguments of scientists who have studied these areas because I myself have not spent the time studying them and I do not bring with me the premiss that science actively tries to subvert the truth. I just want to come back in and make sure you didn't miss the quote I provided you (see below), because you are acting like it never happened still. Why do you not accept this argument? It can't just be because a scientist said it.. It is a reasoned argument using the framework of a scientific theory. It is easy to argue against things when you make your own definitions and rules, tell people what "neo-Darwinian theory" is and then show how based on your own definitions it doesn't work. Notice the difference in definitions between how a scientists describes evolution and how you do? What real basis do you have? Have you spent your professional life studying this field of natural science? Or are you doing what you accuse me of "simply wild wishful speculation with no real basis".

Yes, symbols exist in the realm of philosophy called epistemology. Just like concepts, they do not exist (besides their physical representation in some cases - but the ideas don't exist), however they integrate information and abstractions together which allow man to perceive what does exist at a higher level of cognition. They integrate a lot of language into a small package, which usually results in a loss of precision. Think of how information is contained in some symbols. All have to do is put out this symbol "$" and I have transmitted tons of information to you. Think of how much information the Cross transmits to Christians when they see that symbol.

I am not trying to claim the system is optimal, it is far from it - all I am trying to say it that there is still science and empiricism behind the decisions that are made in a statist system. Is it hampered by the sticky glue of being funded through force? Of course it is. However, I think you would be surprised how much room there is to innovate in this field and people could make a lot of money if they could come up with silver bullet ideas to fix traffic. Hell, I work for the company that brought the Continuous Flow Intersection to Utah (and the U.S. for that matter) and it took making a good case for their benefits (which are huge) but finally the state was convinced to try it. There is no statist engineer or bureaucrat I have ever met that was against helping traffic flow if you could come up with better ideas, it is just a shit system where there is little competition in road owners. Competition would mean that innovation was not just a consideration, but a necessity in order to stay in business at all. Which I agree, would help traffic flow immensely. Bangerter is going to have 4 of its intersections converted to interchanges in the next 2-3 years. The cost to implement this will be between $150-200 million. This is the cost of getting rid of lights, so they hold off as long as possible because they can't afford to do it all while maintaining what they have. As for speed limits, they are far from arbitrary. One of the main components of designing a road is the design speed. This controls factors like the size of horizontal curve you can have, how long you have to make a vertical curve to change grade, how quickly you taper a lane over, stopping sight distance, how close you can have objects to the roadway, etc. They will raise the speed limit once it is implemented and empirical data shows that it is safe to do so since people already driving that fast and they are not experiencing a peak in accidents. One things with roads is that people die on them frequently, and this makes a lot of people really cautious of the ideas they implement. Individual engineers are required to seal their designs with their name, and are held responsible for what happens with the designs they have signed.